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Taylor Valdez's blog

Around 11 p.m. on Oct. 19, 2017, Judy Gronniger awoke to what she thought was her husband’s snoring.

When Jeff wouldn’t awaken, she quickly recognized that he was going into cardiac arrest and began performing CPR until the ambulance arrived. It took 14 shocks with a defibrillator to restart his heart before he could be transported to Ascension Via Christi St. Francis’s Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.

On Oct. 19, 2018, Jeff walked back into the CICU with his family to thank and recognize the nursing staff who saved his life and fill in the gaps in his memory.

In September 2017, Guila "Suzy" Kilmer weighed 360 pounds, causing her to be uncomfortable in her own body and have a variety of health issues. Today, she weighs 166 pounds — less than half her former weight— with the help of Ascension Via Christi's Surgical Weight Management program.

"I was miserable. I couldn't move," says Suzy, a correctional officer at Hutchinson Correctional Facility for 22 years now. "At one point, I had to be moved into a 'safer' workspace to decrease the likelihood of a health-related incident."

Since September 2018, Peggy Rouse has been battling anal cancer – a disease that at one point left her too weak to eat or function. Now, with the help of Ascension Via Christi’s Cancer Wellness program, she has gained weight, improved her heart function and regained the energy her cancer took from her.

Ascension Via Christi Rehabilitation is offering no-cost 20-minute assessments for muscle and joint pain or mobility issues. These assessments will help determine if further physical therapy is needed to help relieve your nagging aches and pains.

The event will take place 3:30 - 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 28 at all three therapy locations.

Pre-registration is encouraged and required, as spots are limited to therapists available during this event.

February is Heart Month and Ascension Via Christi will be joining the American Heart Association in going red all month.

The month is packed with Go Red events, starting Feb. 1 with National Wear Red Day. The Wichita Thunder hockey Go Red game is also Feb. 1, for which free tickets are available at the Wichita Ascension Via Christi gift shops.

Ascension Via Christi Cancer Institute, the area’s only dedicated inpatient cancer treatment center, has many programs available for patients battling cancer. Cancer Wellness is one of the programs designed for patients to build strength to fight the physical and emotional stress of cancer.

Ruth and John Strunk were known by many Ascension Via Christi associates as the west-Wichita couple who sold all but 40 acres of their third-generation family farm to Via Christi to make close-to-home medical care available to their friends and neighbors. This land is now the site of Ascension Via Christi St. Teresa, west Wichita’s only full-service hospital.